A sad story, don't you think?
by Incandescent-Lies
Summary: Because sometimes 100% perfection should be left to fairy tales and a story can be told in a picture. Sora Riku Squall.


Disclaimer: DO NOT OWN characters, nor do I own 'Upon seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning'—Haruki Murakami does!

Note: SO, I am getting ready for the long drive back to University in the morning and I can't sleep. So I wrote this instead! I saw my Haruki Murakami 'The Elephant Vanishes' sitting on my bag and no idea where the short story idea came from that. Just did. It's a little odd and a little short, but it entertained me while I was very tired but just couldn't sleep.

It's a lil' bit of Riku/Sora, one sided Sora/Kairi and a tad of Squall/Riku. Probably not what's expected.

**Important note**: The parts in italics—if you haven't read 'Upon seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning' – they are from that fantastic short story.

**-A sad story, don't you think?-**

"_One Beautiful April Morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harajuku neighbourhood, I walk past the 100% perfect girl."_

Behold the man stood at the front of the room; book in hand and a stern look in his steely grey eyes.

The glare isn't absolutely necessary and nor is it mandatory but it keeps a class of obnoxiously loud teens in check; some potentially excellent, others strictly average and of course the few who don't care either way. Whatever the case, every one of them practices silence.

But the silence didn't mean they listened—far from it. It was fear and respect which muted the room save one voice.

The man and his book and his glares which promised death; his auburn hair and his pretty words—Squall Leonhart, English teacher.

Squall wasn't entirely sure why he had picked _this _book to read, it wasn't in the school's curriculum and had no relevance to the current subject. In fact, the story was slightly depressing.

But he read it anyway.

"_Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep."_

It's a short story, no more than a few pages long but it stands out to Squall as being one of the author's best. A story with a contemporary-gloomy tone but for all it's cynicism it is an ironic comedy at its heart; to him at least.

Squall read on line for line in a monotonously monotone voice that he used in all of his classes—like the one before this one and more than likely the one after it too. His speaking voice was nothing like his reading or teaching voice, it was something else entirely; all silk and charm and highs and lows, nothing monotone about it.

But a generation without a passion to learn leaves a teacher without a passion to teach, which brings us back to the irrelevant choice of book.

"_Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards. How can I approach her? What should I say?" _

He's aware that his reading is for his own benefit and no one else's. He knows without taking his eyes away from his book who is listening, who's staring out of the window and who is watching him.

Squall knows this because it's the same cycle every time he _teaches _this class.

The blond boy sat at the front with his head on the desk—that's Roxas, one of the potentially excellent. For all his apparent lack of interest, the boy listens no matter how pointless the point. Unfortunately for him, the current subject won't be giving him a grade.

At the back corner of the class sits Sora with his gravity defying hair and cerulean eyes set on the world beyond the window's glass pane. He tries to listen, he truly does…but watching Kairi's P.E. lesson on the field outside is far more entertaining than any book. So strictly average. So strictly Sora.

Squall spared a quick glance to the window noticing the redheaded girl from his class before this one. Kairi, Kairi, _Kairi…_most popular girl in school. Kairi. Squall understood the hierarchy of the teenage population, understood it well at that. It was just so depressingly simple; there was popular and then there was everyone else. The rejects, the nerds, the geeks and the freaks… well they just didn't matter in school politics.

But Kairi, she was an odd one. Her English skills weren't too fabulous, she was no scientist; certainly not a sports star either. Maths however…now that was a different story. The girl could add, multiply, subtract and divide all the calories in the lunchtime cafeteria and it didn't stop there because there were still so many freaking calories left at breakfast and dinner. All that adding and multiplying and subtracting and dividing but the final answer was always the same.

Squall frowned when he actually thought on it. Kairi was skin and bones; the all too common and sad end product of an image orientated society obsessed with _100% perfection. _Yet Kairi was anything but the 100% perfect girl. In fact, had Squall been a more caring teacher he would have addressed the problem himself. Had he been a more decent person he would have dragged the girl to hospital long ago. But he was neither of those things and he just couldn't bring himself to care enough or make it his problem. After all, it just really wasn't his business.

"_and in her hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp… The envelope could contain every secret she's ever had."_

A glimpse of silver halted Squall's reading if only for the briefest of moments.

"_I take a few more strides and turn: She's lost in the crowd."_

From the corner of his eye he could see it; the pale hand, the pencil and the paper both moved against: A honed and forever perfecting skill belonging to the silver haired boy; the one who had never written more than his first name in any of Squall Leonhart's lessons. However, he did have a habit of leaving more than a four letter name in block capitals. There were never any words but there was always a different drawing…a sketch that revealed more to Squall than this boy's words ever could.

And that's exactly why he never scolded the teen on his complete disregard for his own education… and it would have been just too hypocritical.

"_I know exactly what I should have said to her…It would have started 'Once upon a time' and ended "A sad story, don't you think?"_

What was he drawing this time? What part of himself would he chose to leave behind in graphite?

Squall could recall the first picture left on the student's desk and all the others that followed it. He could remember each of them in perfect detail because the drawings themselves were just that—in perfect detail. The boy had talent.

One of the first pictures left on the desk was of a girl; a pretty girl at that with stylish hair, a stick thin figure and a wide careless smile. Her eyes however, were dead. Squall immediately recognised the female as Kairi.

The drawings after that one left in turn a little bit of information about the artist. There were pictures of 'potentially excellent' Roxas; the boy captured in pencil with his phone in hand and a gentle smile on his face. Squall couldn't help but think that the smile was something private and meant for the person on the other end of the phone…apparently he hadn't known he was being drawn.

A week after, the boy left another drawing which explained the one previously left. It was Roxas again with that same smile only this time, he was not alone. To his side stood a tall male with insane hair and a cheeky grin to match. He had an arm looped around the smaller boy's shoulders who appeared playfully adjective to the idea with a grin of his own and a elbow guarding his personal space. Squall was again taken with the ease the artist bled into each image.

The most recent drawings left all held the same subject. A wide careless grin on every page; all very candid and all precisely beautiful even in comparison to the artist's other works.

"_This is amazing" he said. "Ive been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me." _

There was just something about this particular subject that set it apart from the stack of illustrations Squall kept hidden under books in the bottom drawer of his desk. He had no idea as to why he kept them but he couldn't bring himself to discard any. Especially the very detailed and flawless representation of the most day dreamy of the day dreamers in any of his classes.

"_And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."_

Squall recalled the drawings, their technical brilliance and their unique style. He recalled every line, every curve—every mark on that damn page! But most of all, he recalled feeling guilty. Something about those illustrations were so delicately intimate he felt he should never have picked the paper up.

Maybe it was the sweet oblivion of the subject; his faint smile as he rested his chin on an upturned palm and ignored or just plain forgot about the discarded pen and exercise book on the desk in front of him. He seemed more intrigued with the world beyond the window. And that's what set apart that one picture from the rest. Unlike the others, this subject's gaze was not dulled nor dead but the complete opposite. In fact, he looked nothing short of entirely enamoured.

"_What a wonderful thing it is to find and to be found by your 100% perfect other." _

Squall had frowned at the drawing of the boy he recognised instantly. The brunette with his gravity defying hair and eyes cast out at the world beyond the window's glass pane—at Kairi's P.E. lesson. He wanted to put the picture down, forget having seen it and it's strictly average, strictly Sora subject with his enamoured eyes. He wanted to forget it because there was something so sadly ironic about it all and the artist. Squall got the feeling that, to the artist, there was nothing strictly average about the boy at all, but there was definitely something strictly Sora.

"_Let's test ourselves- just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail." _

It was in that moment that Squall took a chance to catch a quick glimpse around his lethargic class at large. Sora was indeed staring out the window with those eyes captured with such talent in graphite. And the artist, Squall noted, was still drawing, tracing out line for line in a bored fascination and seemingly oblivious to his teacher's analytical eyes on him.

"_The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other's 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met." _

Squall thought he could understand the boy's pain…the artist's that is. Did he leave the pictures behind because he simply didn't want them? Perhaps he felt no need to keep drawings that would remind him of Sora and Kairi and world behind the glass. Or maybe he left them for his teacher to find and look over; analyze and understand just as he had been doing. But that was ridiculous, why would the boy leave a picture book of his world?

"_One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season's terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence's piggy bank."_

What would a self portrait look like if the artist were to draw himself? Squall mused. Would there be pretty lines and curves; an image of perfection in detail and subject? Maybe he would be alone, or maybe he was with strictly Sora and his enamoured eyes and wide, toothy grins. But most of all, Squall wanted to know how the boy would draw his own eyes—dull, lifeless, dead…or would his aquamarine gaze show a kind of contentment that was wise beyond its years. Probably not.

"_Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty."_

He wondered as he read—he wondered if Mr. Artist believed in love at first sight, love conquers all, love, love, love and all that cliché' crap they fed you in movies and books. Probably not. He dismissed that train of thought.

"_One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west"_

And another train of thought. Did Kairi know? Did she see Sora as strictly Sora or as strictly average, strictly Sora? Squall opted for the latter. And did the brunette with gravity defying hair see beyond the window, beyond Kairi and to the artist and his pencils and alluring talent to tell a story without words? He doubted it.

"_Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever."_

Squall couldn't recall when it was that he first started watching the pale hand and the fascinating boy. He didn't want to either; for if he couldn't remember, the answer was probably, "too long."

"_A sad story, don't you think?" _

The bell rung signalling the end of the lesson and the start of lunchtime just as Squall finished up the story. Lethargic teens left their seats and stalked from the classroom with a lack of enthusiasm and their teacher couldn't help but feel responsible for the overall sombre mood. He didn't feel guilty though.

Mr. Artist left in tow with Sora and Roxas, and as expected, when the room was vacant of students and Squall glanced over towards the empty desks, there was a single sheet of paper.

And of course, he had to look.

He expected another picture of Sora in all its candid glory or even another of Roxas or Kairi. Maybe even some friend Squall hadn't seen before. But he definitely did not expect to see himself.

Squall Leonhart, English teacher, book in hand and captured in fragile excellence on a sheet of A4 paper. It was unnerving—frightening even as a number of things struck him at once.

He couldn't recall when he started watching, but he could remember that the drawings happened shortly after and set up the scene for the picture book story with the four letter name in the corner of every page.

Riku.

Had Riku noticed his teacher's analytical eyes and chosen to leave his soul piece by piece in HB pencil? Why the hell would he do that? Squall had to be looking too deep into it. Was he really that bored?

Examining the picture further, Squall saw a difference in the usual pattern. Today there was the date written to accompany the name and he found himself looking too far into it again; looking for reason and meaning to something which was probably irrelevant. But maybe it wasn't and maybe he was hoping.

The last thing he noticed was the most peculiar but it was also a defining point which linked things together and that alarmed Squall. His eyes, the graphite eyes staring up at him were not dull, were not dead and they rivalled everything he had seen in the drawing of Sora and then some. Enamoured? Squall could be so oblivious. Riku was truly fascinating and perhaps he was even 100% perfect.

The other teachers wouldn't see it that way though, nor would the head teacher, or Riku's parents or if he was getting dramatic—the courts would not see it that way either. Because there was absolutely no 100% or perfect about it when it came to Squall and a minor. He wondered when an innocent fascination had become something more.

He looked away from the image of himself to observe beyond the window. He knew the routine. Sora and Riku would go to greet Kairi as her lesson finished up on the grass outside; conversation would ensue up until Riku would step back from it and find the tree more interesting. That's just what happened. But something in the routine changed.

Squall tensed as the intense aquamarine stare crossed the distance from the tree to the classroom window and met stormy grey eyes which reflected those which he had drawn. It was odd; as if some strange understanding occurred between them and both knew how dangerous it was. The air was too stifling and Squall broke the stare to look down to the drawing, then back over towards Riku. And he knew.

Squall knew exactly what eyes Riku would give himself if he were to draw a self portrait. The realization was as deliriously horrifying as it was dangerously exciting.

And the only thought that came to mind to Squall, the one thing to cross his mind as an array of possible futures crossed his minds eye was:

A sad story, don't you think?

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

It was a lil rushed, but it kept me entertained! Did it entertain you? O.O

Any thoughts, comments, criticisms?! Maybe even a cookie, I could use one?

And if any of you read 'Destiny University' I'm on a major writers block because it was started without a plot in mind—so if you have any ideas, feel free to send 'em my way!

Much love 3


End file.
